The journey of our species into the deep
I think that August 15th should be #HalfMileDownDay - the day in 1934 that people first ventured that deep in the ocean, and an opportunity to celebrate humanity's journey to the depths beyond.
But the story of human exploration of the deep sea and the names of those involved are much less well known than the history of space travel.
So here's a quick run-down of record-setting deep dives, with depths and dates, that culminated in people reaching the deepest point in the oceans - from 923 metres deep in 1934 to 10,916 metres deep by 1960:
Deepest dives & years:
🌊surface
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435m Beebe & Barton 1930
671m " 1932
923m " 1934
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1372m Barton 1949
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3167m Piccard & Piccard 1953
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4050m Houot & Willm 1954
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10916m Piccard & Walsh 1960
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) August 8, 201811 June 1930: 435 metres
William Beebe & Otis Barton start to set new depth records, diving off Bermuda in the "bathysphere" that Barton designed (https://t.co/RoyO7mEIRz)
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) August 8, 201822 September 1932: 671 metres
Beebe & Barton return to Bermuda and set a new depth record - while broadcasting live on the radio from the bathysphere to listeners on NBC across the US and BBC in the UK.https://t.co/nd7ULrZoVK
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) August 8, 201815 August 1934: 923 metres
Beebe & Barton set their final depth record in the bathysphere, later described vividly in Beebe's wonderful book "Half Mile Down".https://t.co/yTgn0n0tZm
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) August 8, 201819 August 1949: 1372 metres
Barton sets a new depth record off California alone in his "Benthoscope" (an updated bathysphere-type craft, still dangled from the surface by a cable, but designed to observe the seabed, trundling over it on wheels).https://t.co/7dsGlslq31
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) August 8, 2018September 1953: 3167 metres
Auguste Piccard & his son Jacques plunge to a new record depth in the Mediterranean off Naples, in the bathyscaphe Trieste.
Designed by Piccard senior, the bathyscaphe is not connected to the surface like a bathysphere.
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) August 8, 2018(With his dive at age 68, Auguste Piccard became the first person set records for going both up and down: previously, in 1932, he ascended to altitude 16,936 metres in a balloon with a pressurised gondola that he also designed)
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) August 8, 201815 February 1954: 4050 metres
Georges Houot & Pierre Willm of the French Navy set a new depth record off Dakar, in the bathyscaphe FNRS-3 (which was also designed by Auguste Piccard).https://t.co/Ct8CANghCS
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) August 8, 201823 January 1960: 10916 metres
Jacques Piccard & Lt Don Walsh of the US Navy reach the deepest point in the oceans, the Challenger Deep of the Marianas Trench, in the bathyscaphe Trieste.https://t.co/KdY9PbcEQ5
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) August 8, 2018Don Walsh describes the Challenger Deep dive, and the build-up dives preparing for it, in his own words in this Scientific American article:https://t.co/nF7jI5iWC0
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) August 8, 2018Jacques Piccard went on to design the "mesoscaphe" Ben Franklin (aka Grumman/Piccard PX-15), which he & five others lived inside from 14 July to 14 August 1969, diving as deep as 549 metres & drifting more than 2300 kilometres from Florida to Nova Scotia.https://t.co/Opuue1A1BH
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) August 8, 2018
Jon Copley, August 2018
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